John Woodburn

July 26, 1948

The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh (Little, Brown and Co.; $2.50)
This cold-blooded little novel made its first appearance five months ago in Cyril Connolly’s Horizon, and almost immediately aroused clashing comment. Waugh himself has anticipated this reaction in a nervous prefatory note to the American edition, called “A Warning,” in which he says, in part; “This is a purely fanciful tale, a little nightmare produced by the unaccustomed high living of a brief visit to Hollywood…. this is a nightmare and in parts, perhaps, somewhat gruesome.